Since I’ve been hacking away at this seemingly purposeless activity we’ve come to know as “blogging,” I’ve come across thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of blogs, many of which I skim to see if they have any features I think cool, others I bookmark to occasionally read and still others to which I link.

A couple of services cycle through blogs, allowing users to see scores of creations on every topic imaginable. Alpha Inventions is one of these, as is Condron US. When signed in, users can get a good feel for what else is out there, as well as enter his or her blog so others will see it. In that regard, they generate traffic and interest. To me, Alpha seems to be the one that brings in the most traffic but to get the most out of it, you must subscribe ($10/mo), so there’s that. Conrdon US is free. Alpha’s free option starts strong but dwindles until you cough up the monthly fee.

The point of this post isn’t that. As I read countless blogs, I find many I admire but many more I that are monumentally bad or could be good, if their creators weren’t such.

Since time is the one thing that life can’t give back to us, I feel one must divine some mechanism through which time won’t be devoted to the lesser efforts. I’m developing a system. It may seem superficial to some but if you respond, I’ll consider your thoughts and incorporate them if I agree.

The first rule I intend to follow regards Blog Titles. I feel a masthead should be given careful thought. It should encapsulate the thematic tone of the work. Using as little copy as possible, it should inform, tease and attract readers, while disclosing something about the writer(s). Typos are forgivable, improper grammar is not.

I avoid blogs with pet pictures, needlepoint, conservative pundits, fundamentalist evangelical Christians, religious zealots, white supremacists, “hate” in general, demeaning jokes, dating, sex and diaries. I don’t care how old you are, who you have sex with, how often, for how long and in what positions. I’d sooner read you if you have some great recipes, especially for soup. Soup is good food.

I’m not much on family reunions and tend to not want to read about them, unless the families are incredible in some way: say Amish furniture makers hooked up with a troupe of circus aerialists or a trailer park community owned by home schoolers who have intermarried to comprise the entire park. They change classes, backpacks bobbing from trailer to trailer. Their family tree appears to have far more roots than branches but boy, what a “pot luck”.

Blogging should be a no-holds-barred, democratic activity. But such blogs, I choose to skip. There are many more guidelines to cite but just like you, I’m ’bout out of gas on this. However, should you want to add or qualify my selection criteria in any way, please be my guest! Because as cool as blogging can be, it can also be incredibly annoying.

Wow. Too bad you’ll never read my blogs. I currently have 3 and 2 of them don’t cut it based on your list. I’d invite you to check them out, but then I’d have to shoot you 8=)

I agree that time is precious and you do need to be selective with what you read, but it seems that you want to shut out a great deal of bloggers who have something valuable to share simply because they don’t agree with you politically or religiously. I find that I can learn a lot about things by seeing the points of view of others around me.

One thing tricky about the written word is that tone can be difficult to convey. It’s truly an art, one that I wrestle with frequently. My intent in this post is satirical, which I don’t say as a cop-out, since while hyperbolic, my examples indeed convey some of my interests along with other things I’d sooner see relegated to one’s private diary or journal.

I do read blogs that break my “rules,” provided they’re not mean-spirited or poorly written. But there are SO many blogs out there, I feel the need to impose some guidelines. I don’t know how you handle 3.

If you don’t mind, send me a link to the blog you enjoy writing most. If I dislike it, I won’t be crass, and I can always stand to learn something.

I agree with you on the difficulty with expressing ourselves without the benefit of body language, tone of voice, etc.

We definitely need to put filters on what we read since there is just too much out there and a lot of it is not worth our time. I’m not sure if there is an easy way to do this though although using something like StumbleUpon or other social bookmarking can help find blogs that are enjoyed by others that have similar tastes. Then you can use a feed reader to keep up with them.

I actually came across this post with a Google Alert that I have set up for Ramblings and blog since one of my blogs is actually called “Ramblings”. It is the blog that gives me the most scope since I can write about anything that I like in it. Currently, I’m writing about social media (blogging, Twitter, etc), Christianity, complaints about the lack of broadband internet access, etc. I also plan to write a little about music, movies and books.

The other 2 are niche blogs (Howls is about golf and Cookie Crumbles is humourous stories and jokes). As for which I enjoy writing the most, that is hard to say since I enjoy each of them at different times in different ways. I would probably say that Howls (http://blogs.wolfpawroad.com) is my favourite since it was the first. I haven’t posted in a few weeks since I’ve not been able to play golf due to an injury, but I’m working on the next post in the fitness series “Two Feet at a Time”.

I must warn you that I do cross the line once in a while with religious stuff even though it is a golf blog. I believe that my faith is a part of all aspects of my life. I try not to be preachy though and I hope that readers won’t be offended by it.

The hardest thing that I’ve found in running 3 blogs is finding interesting images to add to the posts. The writing is usually pretty straight forward for me. The low speed internet makes it hard to search for good graphics and that slows things down.

Well, drop by for a visit sometime. I promise that if you drop by Ramblings, it will be our secret and I won’t shoot you 8=)